I focus almost exclusively on PvP, whether solo, small gang, or large bloc warfare. In the past, I've been a miner, mission runner, and faction warfare jockey. I'm particularly interested in helping high-sec players get into 0.0 combat.

Friday, August 26, 2016

Lessons: It's Not About Whether You Lose…

Recently, I’ve been trying out a new roaming system that
involves Valeria in a fast-warping interceptor with Talvorian in a wicked
neuting Vexor Navy Issue. It requires me to multibox, something that’s
definitely outside my wheelhouse. But, that’s kind of the point, to get out of
my comfort zone and stretch myself.

Originally, my goal with the setup was to use it to catch
ratters more efficiently. I’ve often entered system and managed to pinpoint my
targets in my Stratios, only to miss them by a few seconds. I wash hoping a
fast-warping interceptor might be fast enough to pin them down and survive long
enough for my back-up to kill them. I really haven’t gotten that chance; though
I’ve flown the setup three times, I haven’t managed to find any ratters to test
it against.

That’s not to say I’ve come up empty, though. While the
planned engagements haven’t done well, it has performed admirably in surprised
PvP situations, particularly against blobs.

Each time I’ve flown it, though, I’ve stumbled across a
fairly large gang. First, it was a 20-man Pandemic Horde nano fleet in Tribute
consisting of Cynabals and Dramiels. Nothing I could do there; I was dead
before I could apply drone damage.

The second time, I didn’t make it quite as far, stumbling
across a number of MOA pilots in Pure Blind. When I first landed, I saw a
Garmur and Malediction sitting on a gate, but as I sat in local for a while, I
noticed a few more pilots coming around.

When you jump into a gatecamp and don’t really want to
engage, you really have two options for dealing with it. If the camp is poorly
constructed and you spawn in a good location – ie. more than 30 km from tackle
– you can try to align and warp out. If you’re in a cruiser or above, though,
that’s likely not going to work.

Your other option is to burn back to the gate. That’s what I
did, but given that there were only two ships and they started out about 20 km
from me, I didn’t overheat my mwd, just made my way casually.

Once you reach the gate, you have a couple options. Most
camps will assume you’re going to jump right back through, and simply getting
within range of the the gate may see some pilots anticipate you and jump through
immediately. But, there’s value in delaying for a moment. More than once, I’ve
burned back to the gate only to find all my enemies were premature, and I just
moonwalked away.

But, even if they don’t jump, often times you’ll find that
no one will point you on your side of the gate. After all, it’s obvious that
you’ll jump through, right? And no one wants to be the only member of the fleet
left off the killmail because they pointed you on the wrong side of the gate
and had to wait out a full minute of aggression timer. (side note: this is a
huge problem with killmails, along with logi not getting on them). Many times
after burning to the gate, you can simply align and warp off. At best, you’ll
get away. At worst, you’ll force your opponents to play your game and make a
quick decision to point you. Those decisions are often done individually, not
at the FC level, in a moment of panic as they the possibility of watching you
escape. People tend to revert to their instincts, and most PvPers’ instincts
are to attack. It’s a neat way to force players to engage you, triggering that
aggression timer.

In the worst case scenario, some of the pilots in the camp
will engage you, and only part of the fleet will be able to follow you through.
Even in a gang of five ships, fighting two or three of them is much easier than
fighting all five. In my case, two pilots pointed me, and when I jumped
through, my fight was going to be two ships’ easier. The Garmur was still
jumping with me, and escaping the long point range of a Garmur is difficult. I
wasn’t getting away unless I could kill everything and wait out my aggression
timer, which wasn’t likely.

Now, I was going to see how that triple neut VNI would
perform.

For my ship, range matters. If I can lock an interceptor
within 12 km, he’s going to be drained immediately, leaving him an easy target
for my drones, which can usually volley intys in three shots. With this ship,
the only point to playing gatejumping games is to refresh my luck; I’ll stop
when I spawn near enough my targets that I can take advantage of my neuts.

Fortunately, I had a couple targets within neut range, so I
started burning back to gate as I locked everything nearby. Unfortunately,
local was rising and the grid was starting to fill up with more tackle. Dropping
my drones, I targeted tackle and realigned out, hoping to snag a break in the
points. I applied all three neuts to my first target and drained him just
before my drones landed their first hits, taking him into mid-armor. He died on the next volley.

Then I moved to the next one. And the next one. By the time that
third interceptor died, I was taking serious damage from a Jackdaw and Garmur
on grid, both of which were wisely keeping their distance from my neuts. It
ended up being too much, and I
died in a blaze of glory next to the wrecks I created.

All in all, I came across a group of eight pilots and
managed to kill three of them before I died. I’m happy with that performance.
My neuts did their jobs very well, and without MWDs, and my drones shredded the
interceptors. What more could you ask for?

Later that same night, I took out an identical version of my
VNI and ran into a Horde camp with a carrier and instalock Devoter on-grid, and
a fleet of about twenty on the other side. Naturally, I died, but not before I killed a Svipul who wanted to
join the party. That single kill was a victory in my book.

Too often, we judge victory by whether we lose ships. To do
that is to really do ourselves a disservice. After all, no solo pilot really
has any business killing any member of an 8-man gang. The solo pilot is
expected to lose, and lose quickly. We can’t control how many or what kinds of
ships attack us, but we can control the decisions we make during the fight. Blobs
happen, and when they do, our only choice is to conduct ourselves as best as we
can. Those are the kills you remember, the ones where you pull out some success
despite overwhelming odds.

It’s not about whether or how much you lose, but by how you
perform against expectations. That’s the only measure of success that matters.

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